The Daring Dish Dash

Credit where it's due: If Philip Ardagh hadn't written his books I probably
wouldn't have written this. Also, I'd like to thank my mom, who helped me edit
this. Thank you for reading this totally pointless piece. Now, onto the story:

Seeing what was happening, Tippy the Snowbunny did the
only thing a Snowbunny of his height, weight, personal emotions, social standings,
income, fur color and ear length would do. He screeched at the top of
his lungs.

In this case, I do not mean his screech was directed
at the top of his lungs, but rather that he screeched as loudly as he could.
If you are wondering what a Snowbunny screeching as loudly as he can sounds
like, here is as close a representation of the sound as can possibly be recorded
with mere words:

'EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!'

His owner, Mo the blue Gelert, paused in the
act of throwing Tippy's food dish in the trash.

"Tippy," Mo said, raising the paw that was holding
the dish, and, in extension, the dish, "this dish is worn out, dirty, and just
plain yucky-"

"Squeak squeakin' squeak squeeeak!" Tippy interrupted.

In case you don't speak Snowbunny, here is a
translation: "But I am rather partial to that dish, and I do not think it is
worn out, dirty, or yucky. I find it quite nice, refined, and delicate, actually.
Please do not throw it away."

Of course, Mo did not understand that. All he
heard was, 'Squeak squeakin' squeak squeeeak!'

"Oh, really? Well, I'm afraid I out-rule you
in this matter, Tip ol' chum," Mo said cordially, releasing the bowl from his
grasp. It fell down into the trash can, as is to be expected, and thumped
dully when it hit the garbage.

Tippy gasped, and his eyes grew wide (not literally,
of course. His eyes did, at one point in his life, actually grow in diameter,
but that is a totally different story related to an unfortunate meeting with
a tank of helium) as he heard his faithful dish thump. Never, in his
wildest dreams, had he ever imagined he would hear his faithful dish thump.

Mo, not hearing or noticing Tippy's shock, made
a 'Hmmm' sort of noise in his throat as he looked at the clock.

"Well, I need to go to guard duty, Tippy. When
I come home, we'll go buy you a nice new dish."

"SQU-eak squeakin' squeakin' squeakin'!"
squeaked Tippy defiantly, which means, in Human, "But I don't WANT a new dish!
I want my old dish! Why must I continue to explain this?"

Of course, Mo did not know this, since he doesn't
speak Snowbunny, but the italic squeakin' and the capitalized SQU- caused
him to consider that Tippy was not happy with him. Mo shrugged, since he really
couldn't change things now, patted the irate Tippy on the head, and walked down
the hall and out of the house.

Tippy's eyes, and most likely the rest of his
body, if it could, glared after him. When he heard the door slam, he shifted
his gaze towards the trash can. He had to save his dish! But how?

He glanced around the kitchen and hummed the
theme for Ice Cream Machine. The cutting board could be useful, as could
the kitchen string and the rolling pin… But…

(Note that this is an improper, capitalized
But! That means it is an important 'but', not just your every day 'but'! This
means that Tippy is going to think something important next, so don't say I
didn't tell you to pay attention. Anyway, where did we leave off? Oh
yes…)

…he would need the help of a lot of his friends
for this one.

Let's see… he'd need Matthew and Jewel… Ani and
Thomas, definitely… and probably Mufasa and Macky, too. Ah, but how was he to
bring his friends together on such short notice? Simple: they had planned an
emergency call for just such a Neopia-shaking crisis. Prepping his vocal cords
with a few imperial-sounding coughs and 'ahems', Tippy opened his mouth, and
this exited his maw. "EEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeEeEeEeEeEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

Or something very close to it.

Within minutes, his friends dashed, hopped, flew
and generally made their way down the Great Stairs and towards their friend-in-need.

They gathered around him and cocked their collective
heads in curiosity.

Tippy glanced at what Jewel, the Wadjet, was
doing. He was cutting ear-holes in half of a tomato. Next to him sat two more
halves, one with no ear-holes, and one with them. These were for himself and
Matthew, the Warf. The one he was working on was for the leader of the operation,
Tippy.

Now, you may be wondering how Jewel is cutting
anything if he doesn't have paws, or even arms, and why he is cutting
up tomatoes.

(I mean, they never did anything to him, did
they? They had led happy lives on the plant, chatting with friends, helping
their younger siblings with their homework, and reading novels on Saturday.
Until an evil tomato-picker plucked the afore-mentioned tomatoes from their
families, friends, and homes. They had been sent to the Health Food Store, a
horrible place where all the unlucky fruits and vegetables were sent to be 'nutritious'
and 'good for you'. In the end, most were eaten by ungrateful young Neopets,
who had no idea what suffering had been endured so they could be healthy. But,
I stray off the track.)

Jewel is using his tail to hold the knife. Admittedly,
that's hard to imagine, but to explain, I would need complex diagrams, life-size,
fully posable models of Wadjets, and several hours, none of which I have. So
you'll have to take my word.

He is cutting the tomatoes so they can be worn
as rather squishy helmets. They had originally considered using measuring spoons
as helmets, but that idea had been scrapped when they realized they would have
to cut off the handles.

Tippy squeaked encouragingly to Jewel, and moved
on.

"Rarf rarf! Rarfin'!" Matthew the Warf called
to Tippy. In other words, "Hey Tippy, I believe I am finished with the catapult,
so if you could please tell Jewel to hurry, we shall be able to lift off shortly."

Tippy nodded, relayed the message (Squeakin'!
Squeak!), and then looked at the rest of his compatriots, who were lined up
in front of him.

As Jewel slithered up to him, Tippy cast his
eye over his team and gestured to Matthew to stand next to him.

Jewel handed - -er, well, I can't really say
handed since he doesn't have hands… hmm -- alright, Jewel tailed
Matthew and Tippy their helmet. Matthew cringed slightly, since he didn't, doesn't,
and never will like tomatoes. However, he likes cutting up measuring spoons
less, so there we are.

With helmets on, they stepped onto their catapult.

This catapult, in case you didn't know, and you
probably didn't, was a cutting board on top of a rolling pin. They had properly
secured the rolling pin, and tested the catapult multiple times with the unfortunate
remains of the tomatoes, so everyone felt confident it would work.

Tippy, Matthew, and Jewel stood on the catapult,
their helmets dripping tomato juice majestically onto their shoulders (except
in Jewel's case, since he didn't have shoulders). Mufasa, Ani, and Thomas stood
on a bag of flour next to the higher end of the cutting board catapult.

"Squeak!"

Those on the flour bag got in position to jump
onto the catapult, and those on the catapult prepared to go flying off
it.

"Squeak!"

Everyone did exactly what they did after the
first squeak, only this time they did it more dramatically.

"SQUEAK!"

Those off the catapult jumped on
it, and those on the catapult flew off it.

I can't really describe what they said as they
flew along, but it sounded rather like this:

"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

Followed by a 'Squish' 'Eeeeeck' and then a rather
loud 'Thump', though if you had actually been there, it would have sounded more
like "SquiEeeshckTHUMP!"

Since he rather felt that the last 'Eeeeeck'
wasn't strong enough, Matthew added, as he stood up and picked off bits of tomato,
"Eeeeeeeeech!" Tippy and Jewel agreed, and donated their 'Eeeeechs' to his attempt.

Well, they had made it into the trash can, and
it wasn't a pleasant place. They were surrounded by trash. Tippy looked across
the vast expanse of garbage, trying to spot his precious dish, while Matthew
and Jewel looked across the vast expanse of garbage with disgust.

Finally, in the distance, Tippy saw his priceless
dish.

"Squeak! Squeakish Squeak!" he said excitedly,
looking back at his thoroughly disgusted friends. They looked up half-heartedly,
by now wishing that someone else had been chosen to go with him. However, they
trudged after him as he hopped hopefully towards his dish. Soon, happilly for
everyone, since it stank STANK stank in the trash can, they reached the
object they had all labored for hours to rescue. Tippy dashed the last few hops,
and threw himself on the dish, while the other two glanced at each other, and
then at the enormous wall that surrounded them.

"Urm… Arf?" said Matthew meekly.

"H'hiss hiss. HISS!" Jewel added, more confidently.

Tippy looked up, startled, and saw the look of
utter revulsion on his pals' faces.

"Squeak. Squeak squeakish. Squeakin'," he said,
which means, "Oh, yes, I am sorry. It does stink STINK stink in
here. I will now call for the rope to be thrown over."

With that, he screeched at the top of his lungs
(see the beginning of the story). Soon, a large knife attached to a very thick
string came hurtling over the edge of the trash can and buried itself (the knife,
not the edge of the trash can) in the trash.

Jewel slithered forward enthusiastically, while
Matthew and Tippy followed with the dish. Once they reached the knife Jewel
used his tail to pull the rope (which was multiple pieces of kitchen string
wound together) off of the knife hilt. The three petpets worked together to
tie the rope around Tippy's dish, and then yanked on the rope two times.

If you're wondering how they tied string around
a very-close-to-perfectly-round object, the answer is this: they tied it in
a very secret way that is known only to petpets and is passed down from generation
to generation by a ritual that is unpronounceable in Human, so I won't even
bother to write it down.

But I digress.

They tied the string to the dish, yanked twice
on the rope, and up went the dish. Up, up, up it went, until it reach
the edge of the trash can, at which point it went "CLANK".

After the "CLANK", came the very quiet 'whish'-ing
sort of sound that happens when a Snowbunny's dish goes "CLANK" at the edge
of a trash can and then falls through the air towards the ground. After a moment
or two of 'whish'-ing, there came a mixture of "THUMP" and "WHOOSH" that sounded
rather like "THUMOOOSH!" if you listened carefully.

As soon as the three inside the trash can heard
the "CLANK", they ran towards the opposite side of the trash can, since they
knew another knife would be arriving shortly. Just as they were 75/169ths of
the way across the plain of garbage, they heard a dull "THUNK" as another knife
buried itself into the trash. All three petpets inside the trash can spun about
and returned to their original position near the knives.

While I must admit that this way of exiting the
trash can seems rather awkward, it did, does, and probably will even in the
future, work.

Once the threesome reached the knife, they once
again removed the rope from the knife hilt. This time, it was tied about Tippy
in a complex way, so that it more resembled the harnesses mountain-climbers
wear than it did ordinary string. The rope harness was tugged twice, and up
Tippy went, though when he reached the edge of the trash can, he didn't go "CLANK"
and when he fell through the air towards the ground, he didn't make 'whish'-ing
sounds, either. Instead, he said, very calmly, of course, "EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!",
followed by a "OOOOOF!" when he hit the flour bag situated at the bottom of
the trash can. The flour bag made the same "THUMOOOSH!" noise, causing the total
effect to sound something like "EEEEEEEEEEEEETHUMOOOOSHOOOF!"

Tippy hopped off the flour bag and retreated
a safe distance. He watched as the knife-hurtling-over-the-edge bit was repeated
for Matthew and Jewel. However, when Jewel reached the clanking part of the
trash can, he hissed at them to stop pulling. He was wrapped around the rope,
and once they stopped pulling, he slithered his way down to the flour bag. Once
he had slid over to Tippy and Matthew, and the flour bag had been moved, he
hissed again and the pulling continued. Four very sharp, but rather stinky,
knives appeared over the edge, and proceeded to fall, very dangerously, towards
the floor. There was a large "CRASH!" followed by a metallic sort of vibration
that one hears when four very sharp but rather stinky knives attached to multiple
pieces of kitchen string wound together fall through the air and hit the ground.

~~~~~

Several hours later, Mo arrived back home.

"I say, Tippy ol' chap, I'm sorry I threw away
your food dish," he said as he walked down the hall towards the kitchen. He
walked over to the trash can and looked in it, saying as he did, "I'll just
pull it - … out?" He glanced down at Tippy's food mat, and found him sleeping
happily inside his precious dish. Mo scratched his head and said, "I could've
sworn I threw that out."

He shrugged and reached for the knife block on
the kitchen counter. "Huh. I guess I'll just fix dinner - oh gosh, these knives
stink! What did you do while I was gone?!"